Suicide attack on bus kills four in Kabul

January 27, 2014 - 2:12:49 pm

KABUL: A suicide bomber attacked an Afghan army bus in Kabul yesterday, killing four people and wounding up to 22, police said, while a roadside bomb killed six civilians and wounded more than a dozen others in southern Afghanistan.

The Taliban quickly claimed responsibility for the Kabul attack, the worst since a devastating assault on a popular restaurant on January 17 killed 21 foreigners and Afghans.

The attack in the south happened when an improvised explosive device hit a taxi in the evening, said Omar Zwak, a spokesman for the governor of Helmand province. He added that 13 people were wounded.

Among the victims of the Kabul attack was local radio journalist Shahid Naimi, according to police, who happened to be near the bus when the bomber blew himself up.

Naimi was the second Afghan journalist to die in the past week, after the mutilated body of Noor Ahmad Noori was discovered in southern Helmand province on Thursday.

Noori had worked for the New York Times. The motive for his killing was unclear, with police saying only that an investigation was under way.

Hashmat Stanikzai, the chief spokesman for police in Kabul, said the blast aimed at the bus had also injured a number of children who were also in the vicinity of the attack.

The Afghan capital was hit by at least two other attacks in the previous 24 hours, according to security officials.

Two people were wounded in an explosion in the north of the city late on Saturday, while security sources said a rocket landed near the international airport on Kabul’s outskirts without causing casualties.

The restaurant attack on January 17 was the worst on foreigners since the Taliban were overthrown by US-led Afghan forces in late 2001 and sent shockwaves through Kabul.

Three United Nations staff and the International Monetary Fund’s top representative in Afghanistan were among the 13 foreigners killed in that attack.